Yesterday I received a wonderful gift in the mail. Let me show it to you to see if you can guess what it is. The corner of print on the notepad isn't a clue. That's just one of the many notepads we have lying around. R works at a cemetery. He's not a gravedigger, though that's what he usually tells people when they ask. I suppose it sounds more exciting than telling them about the mounds of paperwork that have to be processed each time a family member tries to get in on the family plot, to buy a niche in a columbarium, bury a small urn, not to mention a coffin. (Do you know what a columbarium is? R's job has introduced all kinds of bizarre vocabulary to our conversations at the dinner table.)
The friend who sent the gift suggested that I could think of as plated chewing gum.
The melted tin soldier from the sad children's story.
An abstract reindeer head.
Roadkill.
I enjoy her grim imagination. She's a gal after my own heart. (That's a clue.)
In fact, I love what she imagines as possible substitute shapes almost as much as what it's supposed to represent which is an anatomical heart. See the pulmonary artery up top? The vena cava?
When I consider the blobby shape of a real heart, I'm not sure who came up with the stylized shape we see at Valentine's.
Another friend gave me one of these hearts--in soapstone to fit exactly into my palm.
R and I will be spending a quiet Christmas Eve at home. The most excitement around here will be the beans baking at 250F in the oven. Mais oui, in Québec: beans and tourtière on Christmas Eve.
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